Rapid growth in Lake and Sumter Counties have local supervisors of elections facing the challenge of maintaining secure and efficient elections in the thick of expanding populations.

With new developments continually springing up and more voters moving here, the pressure on these offices has never been greater, yet both counties are committed to the integrity of the electoral process.

Lake County: Securing the Future

Supervisor of Elections Alan Hays is confident that election safety is maintained in Lake County despite a population boom that has intensified demands on his office.

“The number of people coming in really has no bearing on our devotion to election security,” Hays says. 

Hays’ office has implemented a range of security measures to protect the integrity of the vote over the eight years of his service to Lake County. These include 24/7 monitoring of connections, ensuring that sensitive areas like the tabulation room and vote-by-mail department are secured with multi-factor authentication and isolating the tabulation system from the Internet to prevent hacking.

“Our tabulation system is totally independent of and has absolutely no connection to the Internet,” Hays asserts.

Physical security is equally crucial. Hays has overseen the installation of more than 20 surveillance cameras and established emergency plans for polling places in coordination with local law enforcement.

However, the county’s rapid growth has highlighted a significant issue: space constraints. The current 18,000-square-foot facility is no longer sufficient to handle the demands of Lake County’s elections. 

“We need a 50,000-square-foot building that’s climate-controlled to protect electronic equipment and paper ballots,” Hays explains. To manage overflow, his office leased additional space and use trailers for storage.

An architectural firm’s assessment confirmed that a new 48,600-square-foot facility is needed to accommodate the office’s operations. This includes space for administration, equipment storage, staging and programming of voting machines, poll worker training and more. A potential site has been identified but the project awaits final approval from the county commission.

“We need to be in that new facility before the 2026 elections,” Hays stresses. “All in all, it makes no difference to us whether it’s a thousand people or twenty thousand people. We’re still not going to compromise on security. That is our job No. 1.”

Sumter County: Expanding to Meet Growing Demands

In neighboring Sumter County, Supervisor of Elections Bill Keen faces similar challenges. With The Villages continuing to expand south of County Road 44, the need for a larger facility became evident. The existing warehouse in Bushnell that houses essential election equipment and serves as a training center for poll workers is now at capacity.

“Our current facility, built in 2016, was designed to accommodate the needs of a community that has grown much faster than anticipated,” Keen says. The rapid expansion of The Villages, beyond what was initially expected, has prompted the need for a larger warehouse.

Sumter County Administrator Bradley Arnold explains that the current facility was designed with the assumption that development north of Hwy. 44 would be the final phase of The Villages. When The Villages decided to expand further south, it became clear that the warehouse would eventually need to grow to support long-term development.

The new facility, which is under construction and set to be completed by July next year, will nearly double the size of the current warehouse by expanding it to approximately 26,000 square feet. This additional space will provide ample room for storing election equipment, training poll workers and supporting the county’s increasing voter registration and precinct management needs for the next 15-20 years. The Supervisor of Elections’ headquarters will remain in Wildwood.

“This warehouse expansion is designed to accommodate the full build-out of The Villages,” Arnold says, adding that the old warehouse space will be repurposed for the county’s centralized purchasing department as growth continues to impact operations like Sumter Fire and EMS.

In addition to the expanded space, the new facility will feature enhanced security measures to maintain election integrity. Arnold’s team is dedicated to rigorous procedures for verifying and securing ballots. 

This method allows the county to receive voter check-in data from each precinct securely, ensuring that every ballot is accounted for. The office also conducts thorough write-in reviews to ensure accuracy, maintaining a high level of security and they strive to be the first county to display final results of all the precincts on election night for better transparency.

“We spend a tremendous amount of time on security, with weekly meetings dedicated solely to improving both cyber and physical security measures,” Arnold says. “Our commitment to staying paper-based ensures accurate and secure elections.”

Photos: Matthew Gaulin

Rendering of the Sumter County warehouse  provided by Sumter County